< Back

December Woodland Garden Tips

Buy your friends and family plants this Christmas for a change. We have a range of Christmas Special Offers – especially Winter flowering Camellias to choose from. Click here for offers

 

Uplifting Trees


Checking Tree Stakes

Check all your stakes and ties on individual plants before the onset of the worst winter gales.   Over the course of the year ties may have become too loose or too tight on individual plants.  This may cause them to blow over or snap in strong winds.

 


Removing Wire Protection

Snow

In heavy snow remember to go out and knock the snow off dense evergreen plants. The sheer weight of snow on plants such as rhododendrons, conifers and camellias can easily cause branches to break off and whole plants can get flattened in heavy snowfalls.  By acting quickly with a quick shake or prod from a stick you can usually save some of the more choice plants.

 

Hardwood Cuttings

Take hardwood cuttings of evergreens such as laurel, Olearia macrodonta, escallonia and common deciduous plants such as privet and fuchsia. This is the cheapest way of creating your own new hedge or windbreak for the future.  Strip the cuttings of most of their leaves, dip the bases in hormone rooting powder and line out in an upraised bed or in a corner of the garden in the ground.


0:00 - Salix, Fuchsia & Deutzia
6:10 - Buddleja
7:50 - Berberis
9:53 - Cuttings in the coldframe

 

Tidy Leaves

Complete leaf sweeping or leaf blowing of paths and lawn areas and store the leaves for mulching later when well rotted.

 

Rhododendron ‘Christmas Cheer’Rhododendron ‘Christmas Cheer’ and other forms of Rhododendron nobleanum should come into flower now and fully deserve a prominent position.